Prison stories
A schoolboy prank landed me in a cell once. It happened in the year
1984. I had offered my opponent, Ishan Weerakoon, a draw even though I
had a clear advantage in one of the rounds of the Sri Lanka Chess
Nationals in order to partake of a mouth-watering deal at the Holiday
Inn, along with some friends. They had advertised a savoury buffet for
Rs 35 per head. We assumed they were making up for losses incurred in a
similar event held in the previous week, ‘Sweet tooth symphony’, an
all-you-can eat spread of sweets and desserts for just 10 bucks.
The previous week, after sampling in ample quantities everything that
Holiday Inn had to offer, we had piled into Amesh Perera’s white Benz
and driven around the town. Someone had suggested that the huge school
bell ought to be rung at midnight. That’s exactly what we did. I got to
do the honours.
Senior prefects
This time around, again with full stomachs, we got into Amesh’s car
and went directly to school. Someone said there were some cakes in the
Prefects’ Room. As we walked in, a security guard woke up and shouted.
The boys panicked. They need not have since they were all senior
prefects. They ran. Someone whispered ‘let’s at least ring the bell
before we get out’. I didn’t have to volunteer. Everyone had run off by
that time. The rope was tied a bit higher and a tad tighter. Took a
while to undo. Rang. Ran. I sprinted towards the basketball court,
planning to jump over the short parapet wall and into the waiting Benz
on Reid Avenue. Two men, one armed with a pole and the other a
yakada-inna, an iron rod, came running from around the building and I
turned and ran in the opposite direction. I lost them somewhere, using
all my ‘local-knowledge’ of the school’s architecture and lesser-known
passageways. Jumped over another wall and got on to Rajakeeya Mawatha.
Police officers
My friends would come looking for me, I told myself. ‘My friends,’ 13
of them, didn’t miss the 14th and realized I was not with them only when
they broke up for the night in Thimbirigasyaya.
By the time they found me, I was being questioned by some Police
officers outside the Cinnamon Gardens Police Station. The two men had
emerged from nowhere and given chase. They screamed hora, hora and I had
nowhere to run but towards the Police Station. Was locked up. There was
another person in the cell which was dark, dirty and stinking. He was
sleeping. Three others were thrown into the cell a few minutes later,
just as the ‘senior cell-mate’ was waking up. I was about to ask him
what had brought him there, just to make conversation, when one of the
new arrivals beat me to it. Mr Senior, clad in a dirty shirt and a pair
of shorts, had a surly look about him and a gruff voice.
He growled at the questioner pointing out that the reason is
immaterial and that what mattered was that we were all inside. I was
thrilled to bits that I had not been the one to ask the question.
A few minutes later, our Vice Principal E C Gunasekara, Kataya to us
all, came to say ‘hello’. He asked a few questions and went away. Mr
Senior took me to a side. He told me that I was going to be released. I
asked him how he knew. He said that’s how things are; someone comes, you
get released. He had a request. He wanted me to get him some kudu,
heroin. I asked him how I could do this (I showed what I thought was
genuine concern and willingness to help). He said that he would be
shifted to the Welikada Prison in a few days and said that there were
‘gentlemen’ there: ehe inne mahaththuru...mun vage evun nemei (‘There
you get gentlemen, not like men such as these’). He was pointing to the
three newcomers. He told me that anything could be got at Welikada. He
told me where to go, what to get and how to smuggle it into the cell. I
was astounded. A few minutes later I was out.
One line stayed with me: ehe inne mahaththuru. The impression he gave
was that anything could be got in the prisons.
The other day there was a fight. Inmates had attacked a team of
Police officers searching the prisons. The officers were beaten by iron
rods and other such weaponry. Over 40 officers sustained injuries.
Here’s the question: how did they come to possess iron rods? Aren’t the
premises checked regularly? It is unthinkable that drugs and weapons and
who knows what else get smuggled into prisons without the knowledge of
the prison staff.
Police cell
There seems to be more here than meets the eye. These men were armed
and ready. It is hard to think that corruption within the system
explains everything. Either way, it is clear that the prisons need to be
cleaned up.
I remember a friend telling about a long drawn out feud in and around
Gampaha. It was resolved by some thugs in the end, but at one point a
contract killer had offered to ‘bury the hatchet, once and for all’.
Apart from the money, he had wanted just one thing: visit eka genna
(bring the ‘visit’). He was referring, apparently, to the lunch packet
that a visitor can bring an inmate at Welikada.
My cellmate seems to have got it all sorted out. There were
‘gentlemen’ in the remand facility. People one could count on. Things
were better there. Things were available there. Comfy.
I am not inside a Police cell right now. Not inside a remand prison.
I am ‘outside’. It somehow make me feel very uncomfortable, if you know
what I mean.
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